Aug.,
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1912
T H E J O C R S A L OF I S D C S T R I . 4 L A.lTD E.\‘GI.YEERIA’$VG
of acceptance which have been adopted, and the early date set for the submission of the papers themselves, i t would probably have been easier for the authors t o secure publication in the journals of their respective national chemical societies, had they not recognized the paramount claims of this International scientific gathering. The American Committee of Arrangements is bending every effort toward making the sessions agreeable to the participants ; they are particularly anxious to make this Congress memorable for the promptness with which it shall transact its business, the smoothness with which the machinery of entertaining its members shall revolve and the completeness with which their comfort may be considered. This means as full cooperation on the part of every American chemist as has been cheerfully afforded by the hardworking members of the various committees. I t may be taken for granted that every chemist who can get away from his work, no matter in what part of the United States he resides, will be anxious to attend the Congress, not only for the selfish reasons already stated, but also for the patriotic one of adding by his own presence to the prestige of the greatest chemical function which is likely to occur here for many a year.
r
By
EDWARD R. TAYLOR.
Received M a y 22, 1912.
The radical changes t h a t have been made possible by the use of electricity in chemical industries are well exemplified in the advance in the manufacture of carbon bisulphide during the past thirty-five years. Reports have been made on the progress of this work from time to time.’ The old retort method of manufacturing bisulphide of carbon was fraught with many annoyances and disagreeable circumstances. Yet at one time I had a s many as twelve of them in running condition. With but one retort in a place, economies vanish rapidly. With a number in the same furnace they are not all likely t o fail at the same time, but one is constantly taking out and putting in, which keeps the works in a state of confusion all the time. Fortunately, the large dynamo, with its ability to generate electricity in large quantities and a t reasonable rates, has come to our aid. I n any of the usual retorts we are limited as to sizes of retort by possible heat penetration t o the interior. As these old retorts are heated externally, you will appreciate some of the difficulties of their operation. With the electric retort, however, we can have the heat in the interior, where we want i t and keep the shell cool; that is the secret of its great success. I n regard to the development of our electric retort, I had considered numerous ways of conducting electricity into the furnace, and gave up as inadvisable Presented before the New York Section of the American Chemical Society, M a y 10. 1912. 2 Trans. A m . Electrochem. Soc., 1, No. 1. 115-7 (1912‘, J Frank.
Inst.. Feb.. 1908.
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But i t is not fair t o the managers that you should leave them in the dark as to your intentions: mere subscription to the Congress does not necessarily mean attendance. Write to the Reception Committee at the Chemists’ Club, 5 2 East 41st Street, New York City, of your purpose to come o n ; of your probable address; of the ladies who will accompany you. If you desire i t , write also the kind of rooms you wish to have reserved for you, with your preference of hotels. as this committee has undertaken t o look after all t h s personal comforts of the members. If you have :,ot even paid your subscription as yet, do not postpone this duty until your arrival here, but attend to it. now! Remember that no hostess feels happy if she is in doubt as to the acceptance of a single guest, and that there are all kinds of functions planned for this Congress, which cannot be completely arranged, until the approximate number of participants is ascertained. The man who waits until the last minute unless compelled t o do so, “because there is always room for one more,” catalyzes more profanity among his colleagues than his conscience can bear. Do your share, in the matter of time as well as personal attendance. You will not be sorry.
ORIGINAL PAPERS TH.E MANUFACTURE OF CARBON BISULPHIDE.’
C “ E 3 I I S T R Y.
I
the idea of using movable electrodes as is ordinarily done in furnaces. I concluded if I could substitute for that some electrical conductor in small pieces which would come in between stationary electrodes and stand the brunt of the stress, I would overcome the necessity of moving the electrodes, and this has been so successful that we have been able to run our furnace anywhere from eight months to a year without shutting down, and we have made from 1,500,ooo to ~,ooo,ooo pounds of carbon bisulphide in a furnace without cleaning out. Two large induction type dynamos, madeby the Stanley Company, are used in producing the electricity t o supply our furnace and have given excellent satisfaction. -4waterfall and lake, furnish r e g u l a r mater-head for the turbine generator. A Corliss engine helps out the water power. Two cables z convey the elecF I G . I.
558
T H E J O U R N A L OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D ENGINEERING C H E A V I S T R Y .
tricity from the dynamos t o aluminum bars 6" wide and 5 / / thick, which are connected with the insulated electrodes. Aluminum is used in preference to copper because i t is less liable t o corrosion. Careful and absolute insulation from the shell of the furnace is necessary and possible. Figs. I and I1 show the interior construction of the furnace. Each composite electrode in this furnace is composed of twenty-five carbons each 4" X 4N X 48," making a complete electrode twenty inches square and forty-eight inches long. We use two-phase alternating current and four of these electrodes. I n the center of the furnace they are about twelve inches apart.
FIG 11. IIEIGHT,41 FT
DIAMETER,16 FT
Chimneys above each of these electrodes are used t o convey broken carbons down upon them and over their ends. Their action breaks up and diffuses the current which, instead of being of 'one or two arcs, is broken up into a multitude of little ones, but these probably disappear as the furnace heats up. This moderates the intensity of the heat, stops entirely the hissing of the current so common in arc furnaces, and protects from excessive wear the main and more expensive electrodes, which last a year or more without renewal.
Aug., 1912
They also, if possible, serve a still more important purpose in regulating the current and saving the necessity of moving the electrodes through the walls of the furnace, which would be a very troublesome thing to do in a furnace filled with melted and vaporizing sulphur. This was a problem that presented very serious features in the early thought of a furnace for this purpose. The broken carbons also relieve the intense violence of the heat a t the terminals. I t will be appreciated that for low temperature work, like the manufacture of bisulphide of carbon, this is very essential. They also facilitate the starting and stopping of the furnace. Indeed the broken carbons are so valuable in this respect that we find wecan stop and start at will, even when the furnace has become completely cold, and I cannot emphasize too highly the value of these broken carbons inafurnace of thisconstruction. To charge the furnace, sulphur is filled in up to the top of the electrodes and broken carbons are added, including the filling of the different chimneys over the several electrodes; the shaft of the furnace is filled with charcoal, and the periphery spaces of the furnace filled up with sulphur. With the large construction it is easy to feed the cold and crushed sulphur around the periphery of the furnace, allowing it t o find its way in the melted state into the interior heat zone. Being progressively raised in temperature as i t approaches the zone of reaction, the level of the melted sulphur is regulated by the amount of current supplied to the furnace and the amount of cold sulphur fed into the periphery. On combination of the sulphur vapor with the charcoal, the formed bisulphide of carbon rises through the charcoal above it, heating it as it progresses downward towards the reaction zone. Thus, in this furnace, the heat seeking to escape by radiation is continuously borne back t o the reaction zone by the incoming material. So complete is this return that, when making bisulphide of carbon at the rate of fourteen thousand pounds per twenty-four hours with the room a t 16' C., the outside shell of the furnace shows temperatures a t different points ranging from 23-64' as a maximum: with yet more power in the furnace, the production would be greater and these readings still lower. There is very little wear to the interior of the furnace. If electrodes are disposed to get very hot, we feed a little more sulphur than otherwise, and that has a tendency t o cool the electrodes. Sometimes pillars are disposed to form in the cor-
T H E J O C R S A L OF IAI-DCSTRI,AL A1YD E,YGI-YEERIA-G C H E X I S T R Y .
Aug., 1 9 1 2
+
+
I FIG.111.
ners between the electrodes. We use the a-phase current, with one phase put on one side and the other phase on the other. Now, if pillars form in the corners, and the conductivity of the furnace is not just right, we sometimes change over and run the current to adjacent electrodes t o burn out the pillars. This change is shown in Fig. 111. The provision for the sulphur is, I believe, one of the most important features of the furnace structure.
559
never yet been able t o put enough current into one of these furnaces to enable us t o keep all of these perfectly full. I a m looking forward in a few weeks t o being able t o do that, and I anticipate that I shall be able to produce from ~~,000-30,000 lbs. of carbon bisulphide in one of these furnaces in twenty-four hours. We have already produced 16,000 lbs. in twenty-four hours, as i t is, but with sufficient power to go into the same furnace, i t will practically double the output. PENN Y.4N.
S E W YORK.
THE OCCURRENCE OF EFFLORESCENCE ON LAVA BRICKS. By WILLIAM MCGEORGE. Received March 20, 1912.
I t is a common occurrence to see brick walls partially covered with a white film generally most abundant under the eaves and window-sills but more or less scattered over the whole building. This film is com-
CARBONBXSULPHIDE PLANT, PENNY A N ,SEWYORK.
We are able t o lag the furnace from the inside instead of outside, and we lag i t with the very materials used in the production of the carbon bisulphide. S o w the more perfectly we can carry this out, and the more completely full all of these channels can be kept with sulphur, the greater the economy will be in the production of the goods. The real fact is I have
posed of soluble salts which, being washed from the interior, on appearance a t the surface and subsequent evaporation of the water are deposited as a film. I n most cases i t is composed of sulphates of calcium, magnesium, potassium or sodium. The carbonates of calcium and magnesium are considered too insoluble t o appear and those of sodium and potassium too
